


The Family of Before

by IRegretNothingAndEverything



Series: HLVRAI Mermaid AU [2]
Category: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Bittersweet, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Reminiscing, bubby bein a bit sad, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:00:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26229832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IRegretNothingAndEverything/pseuds/IRegretNothingAndEverything
Summary: Bubby wondered, briefly, what his life would have been like if he hadn't been taken by Black Mesa.
Relationships: Bubby/Dr. Coomer (Half-Life)
Series: HLVRAI Mermaid AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1905055
Kudos: 65





	The Family of Before

**Author's Note:**

> Some bittersweet Bubby stuff!

His mother smelt like strawberries. That was all Bubby could remember of her anymore. She had a candle in her room, that she always had extras of, that smelled like strawberries, and the smell lingered on all of her clothing. When he hugged her, he could smell it, and always felt a bit happier around the scent. 

It was Pavlov's dog, he knew, but even past the ‘memory erasing’ he would smell the artificial smell of strawberry candy, and hope, for just a moment, that his mother had come to save him from this. She never did, of course, as he was just a missing person in the eyes of everyone else. 

He couldn’t remember what his dad had smelled like. He couldn’t remember what he looked like either. All Bubby could remember of him was that he had a big black coat, that he would wrap around Bubby when he got home, no matter how old Bubby got, and no matter how embarrassing Bubby thought it was. It was warm, and large, and heavy. Bubby loved the thing, and the one time his father hadn’t done it, Bubby had come into his room later, upset with no idea why. 

He never forgot again after that, and Bubby wished for a heavy coat in the tube, the gown they gave him far too light, as if nothing was there at all. It was the biggest thing he missed about his father, even if he couldn’t remember what his face looked like. 

He had siblings. He had a large family, aunts and uncles and cousins that came by every Christmas, filled the house with people and food, and brought gifts from wherever they lived in the world, the family spread out across the country, the world, but they blended together into one conglomerate of a person, no detail standing out among them, a mockery of the family that had loved him so dearly.

He remembered the feeling of being loved. 

That’s what he held onto, floating in that tube, pretending he didn’t know they had stolen him from his family. The feeling of being loved. He clung to it, breathed through it, and held on. They had loved him. He had been loved. 

He had been forgetting that feeling, truly, when he went down into the sea, never expecting to find love again there, never expecting to find that family, and yet, here he was, hidden in a den that Harold had dug out for them, and thinking. 

Bubby wondered what his life would have been like if he hadn’t gone to Black Mesa. He would still be loved, he was sure of it, but the entire track of his life would have been thrown off, and... as much as he missed the smell of strawberries, and the weight of his father’s coat, he couldn’t imagine his life without Harold in it anymore. 

Where would he be now, without Harold over his shoulder, grinning and tracing his invisible stripes? What would his life had been like, if he had never looked out that window and watched Forzen float lazily by, if he had never sung his music in the docking bay? Would he have gone back up, gotten stuck back in Black Mesa until their experiments killed him? 

“Bubby?” He looked towards the entrance, the bright colored shrimp peeking his head in. “You alright?” 

For a moment, Bubby didn’t answer. He wasn’t actually sure, to be honest with himself, but, looking back up to that wonderful green, he nodded, moving over to the entrance with careful movements, still unsure of his own ability to swim like this. 

“I’ll be alright.” He grinned, pressing a quick kiss to Harold’s cheek, and Harold smiled, tugging him out of the den and back towards the family he could remember.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun Fact: Lost this for like five minutes and almost cried.


End file.
